Solved - How to Move Applications from One Drive to Another on Windows 11

Scenario

Can I move program files to another drive in Windows 11?

Yes, you can. As mentioned by the user in the scenario, when there is not enough space on the C drive, we may think about whether we can move some apps to another drive to free up space? On Windows, the C drive often needs to have 15% to 20% free space. Otherwise, it will affect the performance of Windows 11.

If your D drive has more free space, you can easily move the application from C drive to D drive. In this way, you can run it properly without uninstalling.

It's not hard to move installed apps in Windows 11 from one drive to another. For apps installed from the Microsoft Store, you can move through Apps & features. For other software, you can use manual steps or another simpler third-party software to move applications.

Next, let's see how to move applications from one drive to another in Windows 11.

How do I change the location of apps in Windows 11?

There are two ways of how to move apps from one drive to another, and each method shows detailed steps.

▶ Method 1. Move applications via Windows Settings

To change the location of apps in Windows 11, the most common method is to use Apps & features in Settings. This feature supports changing applications installed from the Microsoft Store, You can refer to the following steps:

Step 1. Press “Windows + I” to open Settings.

Step 2. Click Apps > Apps & features. Here you will find a list of apps installed on your drive.

Step 3. Click the three vertical dots to choose “Move”

Step 4. Select the new destination drive and click “Move” again.

Warning: You can only use this feature to move applications installed from the Microsoft Store. Otherwise, Apps & features move greyed out.

▶ Method 2. Move apps manually by Registry

If you are an experienced computer user, then you can use Registry Editor to move installed programs from C drive to D drive, but it requires typing command prompts, which will crash the system if done wrong. So you have to be very confident.

1. Create a folder called Program Files (86) in the other drive and copy the "Program Files" and "Program Files (x86)" to this new folder.

2. Run CMD as administrator and type the following command (X is the drive letter):

• Robocopy "C:\Program Files" "X:\Program Files" /mir
• Robocopy "C:\Program Files (x86)" "X:\Program Files (x86)" /mir

3. Next, press "Windows + R", enter "Regedit.exe" and open.

4. Find the folder with the following path and change C to another drive.

"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion"

How to move installed programs to another drive on Windows 11 without boot issues

Both methods just mentioned have some limitations, so they may not be optimal. So, how to move applications from one drive to another on Windows 11 easily and safely? AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional will be your best answer. Its App Mover feature allows you to move apps in Windows 11, 10, 8, 7. And the moved apps can work properly on the new path.

★Tip:

In addition to the internal hard drive, App Mover can also move apps to external storage.

Step 1. Install and launch PA Professional. Right-click the target drive and hit the "APP Mover" option.

Step 2. There are two options: App Mover and Move Folders. Here, we choose App Mover. If you need to move folders from C drive to D drive, you can select the latter one.

Step 3. Then, select the C drive and click "Next".

Step 4. Choose the apps you want to move and select the destination location, then click "Move".

Step 5. In the pop-up window, you need to read the prompts. Click "OK" to begin the process.

Conclusion

This is the whole process of how to move applications from one drive to another in Windows 11. There are three different ways here, you can choose one according to your needs.

In addition to moving applications, AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional has some advanced features that are popular with many users, such as allocating free space from one drive to another, deleting large files by type to save more space on PC, cloning disk to a larger one, migrating OS to SSD, etc.

By the way, if you are a Windows Server user, please switch to AOMEI Partition Assistant Server which is designed for Windows Server users.